I heart Sirc, but I often find that we think totally opposite. I'm more afraid that I'll spend so much time worrying about the future that I miss out on how great my life actually is, and that I may go through life unsatisfied because what I have is never enough, like Conan on his throne of skulls, wearing his crown over a troubled brow. Its a similarly difficult image to capture and send to someone's phone.

I suspect that Sirc thinks this way sometimes too though, because he thinks people's first world problems are silly.

One of my favorite skills is compartmentalizing. I can do both. I enjoy my now while always thinking ahead to the future.

Originally Posted by BKR

If he's choking you out because you cant' escape or give up to soon, and you are sticking around through that, good for you.

As for being a choke dummy, well, I do that all the time.

It's mostly because I refuse to tap to chokes. I feel that only a weaker man would do that. It's not just him, in Judo as well I do this.

One of my students choked me out in ne waza randori.I woke up and they were all standing over me all wideeyed and white faced. The first thing I said when I came too was "Who died?", at which point one teenage girl started crying.

One of my students choked me out in ne waza randori.I woke up and they were all standing over me all wideeyed and white faced. The first thing I said when I came too was "Who died?", at which point one teenage girl started crying.

One time I took an aikido class and we were practicing wrist grabs and I was paired up with this supposed "bad-ass" girl who was supposed to be someone tough and such. So when I was told to grab her wrist, the steel fingers tempered by the fires of Judo were apparently too much, she had to get an ice pack and went to the back room to cry. Everyone thought I was such an asshole.

Originally Posted by judoka_uk

Absolutely it really fucks me off how many rec players puss out and tap like typewriters before the choke is even anywhere near sunk in, because they're just wusses.

Everytime it happens, I've half a mind to ignore the tap, until they actually can justify tapping.

Generally I start making fun of them by saying, "Are you seriously going to tap to that?"

Absolutely it really fucks me off how many rec players puss out and tap like typewriters before the choke is even anywhere near sunk in, because they're just wusses.

Everytime it happens, I've half a mind to ignore the tap, until they actually can justify tapping.

That is what led up to my baptism in how to escape chokes, I kept pussing out in shiai. I'd be ahead and my opponent, usually a black belt, would get a choke and I'd tap because it hurt.

My Japanese coach asked one night in practice if I wanted to learn how to not be choked out. My home dojo coach was behind him vigorously shaking his head, so I said no. I was then told that if I tapped again to a choke, he would proceed to teach me how not ot be choked out until I learned. I had no idea what he was talking about.

So at the home dojo, my coach explains.

Next shiai, I'm fighting some sandan, I'm ahead by a wazaari (I was a sankyu or nikyu at the time). This was at a local tournament, and my Japanese coach was refereeing. I had actually thrown the guy for an ippon, but he would never give me an ippon in shiai if he was refereeing my match. The guy sinks a choke with maybe 20 seconds left, and I of course puss out and tap out.

Japanese coach says nothing to me after the shiai, or at practice the next week. Apparently he forgot about his warning. I'm like, "whew", dodged the bullet on that one.

Next practice at home dojo, my girlfriend states how I was doing great until I got choked out. In front of home dojo coach, who then informs Japanese coach. Who then tells HIM to teach me how to not be choked out.

It took two weeks before I learned how not to be choked out. So, 2 weeks, each with 5 training sessions per week. Let's just say a lot of people got freaked out while observing the festivities.

Generally I start making fun of them by saying, "Are you seriously going to tap to that?"

I'm actually quite nice and considerate on the mat, I tend not to verbally or physically abuse people, no matter how much the deserve it or I want to.

Maybe I should start being more of a ****.

Originally Posted by BKR

That is what led up to my baptism in how to escape chokes, I kept pussing out in shiai. I'd be ahead and my opponent, usually a black belt, would get a choke and I'd tap because it hurt.

In randori you have to make my world swim and everything go fuzzy before I tap. Except for one time when the euro medallist 'demoed' the okuri eri jime/ british strangle roll on me and it felt like my head was going to pop before he'd even landed in the finishing position. Never in my life have I felt so much lethal pressure.

Look, I know you're jesting. But let me tell you this. I don't know how he does it, but he sends me photos of me being in my late 20's, balding, slightly overweight and with a girlfriend that I "settled" for. Our relationship is a mere mockery of what I truly desire. Mostly because I know I can't actually do any better and this is pretty much the plateau of what I've become. I work at a job that I hate unable to do the things that I have a passion for. So I start drinking and smoking weed as a way to escape the bitter realities of becoming a dreamless, useless drone. Punching the card, pushing the buttons, day by day, my choices and emotions harden in a rhythmic metronome of mediocrity. I try to look back and wonder where I gave up and gave in to the system having lost the fire that drove me to my past achievements and triumphs, but it's obscured in a foggy mist of bills and expectations from a girlfriend who is so terrified of being alone she hasn't spent more than 3 days without me by her side. I find myself hiding in the bathroom feigning stomach issues so I can have some time alone. Sometimes I wake up a half hour or so before the alarm goes off and take those precious few moments to live in a world where nobody needs me and expects from me. It's ruined by her shrill unattractive voice and the slopping sound of her sloughing off the sheets as she ungracefully rolls out of bed like a larvae escaping its cocoon. I wonder if I'm impotent or just absolutely a shell of a man. She has assassinated my sexual identity and I have lost my dreams.